Grasping at Straws
by knowlee
Summary: Oneshot. Let it be known that Marinette never thought that she was that good at making up excuses on the fly. Sure, one would think that after being one of Paris' superheroes for quite some time this would be a skill that she would have down to an art, but for her it wasn't the case. Based on a Tumblr ask post for Frosted Puffs.
**knowlee** : I got this idea from a Tumblr post where someone had asked someone I follow on there, Frosted Puffs, to write a fic about the subject of Adrien seeing Marinette's pictures of him on her wall and while she is trying to find an excuse for why there are there she tells him that she has them up there because she likes his dad's designs and that she points out one that is her favorite.

(I can't really put links in here, but if you go to my tumblr (username is knowleeraven) and find the post where this fanfic is at and you'll see the link to it)

I hope I did well on this in terms of characterizations and such. I literally wrote this on the spot and didn't really plan it out like I do with my other fanfictions. And speaking of that, I must say that I haven't forgotten about them, I'm still working on 'Letting Go' and 'Flames of Change'. I've just had a lot of things going on in my life and they've forced me to my creative endeavors on hold. I'll get to them soon. I promise.

Anyway, enjoy!

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 **I do NOT own Miraculous. It belongs to Thomas Astruc.**

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 **A Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir Oneshot Fanfiction**

 _Grasping at Straws_

By: knowlee

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Let it be known that Marinette never thought that she was that good at making up excuses on the fly. Sure, one would think that after being one of Paris' superheroes for quite some time this would be a skill that she would have down to an art and wouldn't find herself stressing to find a reason to explain why she wasn't at certain events, late to class, forgot to do homework assignments, etc.

And even when she did figure out a good excuse, she always felt as if they could see right through her stories and realize that she was lying. But apparently they either ignored her lie or must've bought it because she hadn't run into a situation yet where it backfired on her. Yet being the key word. Hopefully though her Ladybug luck wouldn't run out on her anytime soon.

Of course, today might be that day.

Adrien, her crush and love of her life, had spontaneously come over to her house for reasons she wasn't quite sure (something about a borrowing a book he had lost for a homework assignment or something?). And since it had happened quite suddenly (and that he had entered her room as she working on a sketch and nearly scared her to death in the process), she had no time to clear her room of all of her posters and pictures of him that she had plastered on the walls near her desk.

In short, she was screwed.

She prayed to whatever deity was willing to listen (and even prayed that her Ladybug luck would help her out) that he wouldn't notice said pictures, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. Great, she found herself thinking, he probably thought she was a stalker or something. Secretly she prayed that her schedule she had made of his activities wouldn't decide to drop down at that moment. If that happened then he would _definitely_ think she was a stalker.

Marinette spared a glance at his face to see what his reaction was to the whole situation. From what she could see, it appeared that he was...amused? Okay, hopefully that was a good reaction. Better than disgusted that's for sure.

"Heh, you certainly have a lot of pictures there of me, Marinette? Is there a particular reason why?"

Marinette desperately tried to squash the blush that had started to form on her face. The last thing she needed was to react as she usually did in his presence. She needed to think fast. But what would she say…?

She looked away from him to try and contain her nervousness and quickly looked at the photos until she came up with some kind of excuse to use to try and make the situation less embarrassing. She knew that she was just grasping at straws, but any excuse was better than explaining that she had a crush on him.

She also knew that Alya would get mad at her later for missing a golden opportunity, but she would deal with that then. Now was not the time.

She turned her attention back to the situation at hand and while it the mist of her trying to find out an excuse, an idea came to her. She smiled in triumph and put her plan into action. "Oh, um, I just really admire your dad's work and I put these up on the my wall to use as inspiration for my own designs." She knew in the back of her mind that her words were coming out of her mouth a little too quickly, but she was desperate to get this over with. She needed to give him the book he was looking for and get him out of here so that she could freak out about this when he wasn't around.

Her eyes caught on one of the pictures in particular, the one where he was wearing a red coat, and once again quickly thought of something else to use to help back up her statement. She pointed at it. "Like, for example I like to use this one when I'm coming up with ideas to use for coats. It's my favorite."

She looked back at him to see an expression on his face that she couldn't recognize. Did that mean that he bought it? She heard him speak a few moments later and nearly fainted when she saw the smile form on his face. "Oh yeah, I remember that one. The coat was warm and very comfortable." Her smile widened as she heard him chuckle about what she presumed was him remembering the photoshoot he was talking about.

Although she knew that she wanted to cherish this moment and not let it end, she also knew that she was getting very close to reaching her limit of interaction with him. So she stood up from her desk chair. "Um, so about that book..."

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Nearly a whole week had passed since that incident in her bedroom, but luckily he didn't ask her about it or pressure her to tell her the truth behind it. For that she was grateful. Although she didn't get out of having Alya pressure her over the whole situation though, for just like she suspected, she did get mad at her for not telling him the truth, but at the same time she was also understanding of why she did what she did.

She smiled at the thought. Sometime she wondered what she did to deserve a friend like Alya.

The bell chimed to the bakery as she entered it from the front door. She had come home for lunch and was looking forward to having some of her mother's leftover food from the night before to eat. Her mouth began to water at the thought.

Before she could get past the cash register where her mother was standing at, she heard her call out to her. "Oh, Marinette! A friend of yours came by just a few moments ago and dropped something off for you. They didn't say what it was, but I left it for you in the kitchen upstairs."

Marinette noticed the smile on her mother's face and immediately felt suspicious. Who would give her something and why would they not do it at school? But more importantly, who was it? Nino? Alya? _Adrien?_

Her eyes widened at the last name and based on her mother's expression lighting up even more, that was all she needed to know before she found herself darting through the swinging door and running up the stairs to her family's apartment.

She quickly opened and shut the door behind her to see the item in question sitting upon the countertop in the kitchen before her. She slowly walked to it and barely registered that she had set her backpack on the floor while crossing the room. Once she had reached that part of the kitchen, she realized that it was a package of some kind. It only made her even more curious.

She heard her purse latch come undone and from the corner of her eye saw Tikki fly up to inspect the package herself. "What do you suppose it is?"

"I don't know, Tikki." Her fingers grabbed the top of the package and she slowly lifted it up to see what was inside of it. She gasped as she realized that it was the same red coat that Adrien was wearing in the photo she had taped to her wall.

She was in a daze as she put the package's top next to the bottom half of it and then reached to pull the coat out of the box. After she pulled it out, a small piece of paper caught her eye as it fluttered to the ground. Tikki saw it and flew down to grab it. She saw a small smile form on the kwami's face as she read what it said.

"What's it say, Tikki?" She folded the coat gently over her right arm and reached to grab the piece of paper Tikki was holding with her left hand. She flipped the note over to see someone's handwriting on it. She blushed as she realized who it belonged to.

' _Hey Marinette! Thanks for letting me borrow the book I needed and as a thank you, here's the coat you mentioned that you liked that I was wearing in that one photo. I hope you like it! -Adrien_ _'_

In spite of how embarrassing the situation was when it happened, she found herself smiling. Maybe she wasn't so bad at making excuses as she thought she was.


End file.
